When Italian executive pastry chef Riccardo Falcone took the reins at Japanese hotspot , he knew very little about the cuisine, let alone the country’s love of patisserie. “It was mind opening,” he recalls. “I didn’t expect to like it that much, but now I eat more Japanese than Italian in my time off.”
Last month, Falcone unveiled his newest dessert incarnation: 10 masterful, bite-size creations marrying French technique with lightness, balance and local flavours. Known as yogashi, this union is at the very heart of Japanese patisserie (think strawberry shortcake, cotton-soft cheesecake and Mont Blanc).
Three years into the role, Falcone sees the two cuisines as strikingly similar. “It sounds strange, I know. But both are all about the ingredients."
You don’t see many dessert platters these days, but Falcone is a classicist. “At a three-Michelin-star restaurant, diners receive complimentary petit four. That’s impossible with our volume, so this is our solution.” Designed for two extra-hungry folk or up to a party of four, the mega collection is also about sharing, with two servings of each item on the two-kilo board.
Depending on where your eye first travels, the assortment kicks off with mini churros dusted in sugar and kinako. This roasted soybean flour has long been used in Japanese desserts, but Falcone says it is up and coming globally. “It’s nutty and reminds me of chickpea flour,” he says. We’ve spotted it in chiffon cakes and kakigori across Sydney so far.
The sweet selection continues with green tea (matcha) tiramisu, oversized mandarin-scented marshmallows, choux filled with passionfruit cream, miso-caramel truffles and a miso-caramel crème brûlée. “I always use a white (shiro) miso paste as it more delicate,” Falcone explains. “Other misos are too salty for sweets.”
For the miniaturised take on cheesecake, Falcone crowns it with blueberry and shiso. The fragrant herb is rarely found in desserts, but the chef became enamoured with it from the other side of the Saké kitchen and likens its floral aroma to lavender or Thai basil. He also gives the cream cheese filling a Japanese bent with yuzu marmalade.
There’s a macaron, of course, here with a white sesame shell and black-meets-white sesame filling. “Mixing the two provides just the right balance in nuttiness and assertiveness,” says Falcone, who caramelises the seeds before grinding to a paste called praline.
Fantastic fusions: matcha tiramisu, miso-caramel truffles and mochi with yuzu strawberry mascarpone cream. Source: Supplied
Known as yogashi, this union is at the very heart of Japanese patisserie.
The pièce de résistance, in my book, is Falcone’s take on the signature Japanese wagashi (native dessert), mochi. The glutinous rice paste is painstakingly made in-house for soft, delicate, near-disintegrating perfection, filled with a yuzu strawberry mascarpone cream, then shaped into inviting little pillows instead of traditional mounds. The chef, charmingly, describes the steps in his culinary mother tongue: “You cut the lasagne sheets into strips of tagliatelle…”
Three years into the role, Falcone sees the two cuisines as strikingly similar. “It sounds strange, I know. But both are all about the ingredients: quality, respect, and just one or two additions to enhance flavours.”
Saké’s dessert platter is available at The Rocks location for $45.
In this column, , I scour bakeries, patisseries and dessert joints from around the world for the hottest sweet trends, up-and-coming ingredients and game-changing pastry techniques.
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